SEA DYAK RELIGION, 

 ii. 



( Continued from Journal No. 10 p. 213. ) 



In a former number of the Straits Asiatic Journal (No. 

 10), some account was given of the religious ideas and customs 

 of the Sea Dyaks of Sarawak ; of their belief in gods and evil 

 spirits; of their sacrifices and. auguries. The subject is incom- 

 plete without a consideration of their burial rites, and their 

 ideas of eschatology. These I now endeavour to supply. 



But first a word about marriage. Birth is not celebrated 

 with any religious ceremony, and marriage is a comparatively 

 simple matter. The marriage ceremony consists principally 

 in publicly fetching the bride from her father's to the bride- 

 groom's house, but the Dyak, with his love of divination, could 

 not allow such an occasion to pass without some attempt, or 

 pretence, to penetrate the secrets of the future. When the bridal 

 party are assembled in the bride's house, and the arrangements 

 for the young couple' talked over, a pinang (betel-nut) is 

 split into seven pieces by some one supposed to be lucky in 

 matrimonial affairs; and these pieces, together with the other 

 ingredients of the betel-nut mixture, are put iu a little basket, 

 which is bound round with red cloth and laid for a short time 

 upon the open platform outside the verandah of the house: 

 should the pieces of pinang by some mystic power increase in 

 number, the marriage will be an unusually lucky one ; but 

 should they decrease, it is a bad omen, and the marriage must 

 be postponed, or relinquished altogether; but, as matter of 

 experience, they neither increase nor decrease ; and this is 

 interpreted in the obvious sense of an ordinary marriage upon 

 which the spirits have pronounced neither good nor bad. This 

 action gives the name to the whole ceremony, which is called 

 Mlah* pinang — splitting the betel-nut. When the bride has 



* Bllah, Malay.— Ed. 



